Photo (above) credit: TheRinger.com; Cover photo credit: Spurs Talk
As a Philadelphia sports fan, nothing gives me greater joy then seeing New York fail. As bad as Philly sports has been since 2008 (take me back), New York has been just as bad (expect those two Giants seasons). The Jets are the laughingstock of the NFL and the Knicks are the laughingstock of the NBA. The Knicks hired Phil Jackson three years ago. They figured he was an all-time great coach, so he must be a all-time great front office executive/president. Well, that wasn’t the case. Besides drafting Porzingis, he was dreadful. They paid him $20 million a year for garbage. They won 32 and 31 games the two seasons he ran the team. James Dolan might be the worst owner in sports, so he is just as much to blame as Phil Jackson. They tried to stay competitive by trading for Robin Lopez and Derrick Rose and signing Joakim Noah to a 4 year $72 million contract last year for this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-VlJBcG4-7M
But this all brings me to the whole point of this article. Even after they fire Phil Jackson this offseason, they still do dumb things. In 2013 they drafted a guy named Tim Hardaway Jr. 24th overall. He averaged 10 ppg in his rookie season, not bad for a late first round pick. He averaged 11.5 ppg in 2014. In 2015, they traded him to the Hawks for a first round pick. That pick ended up being the 19th overall pick that year, which they drafted Jerian Grant. After his disappointing rookie year in New York, they traded Grant as part of the package that brought Lopez and Rose to New York. The problem is Rose is a shell of his former self with all the knee injuries. And that brings us to this offseason, where Hardaway was a restricted free agent. So, what do the Knicks do? Sign him to an offer sheet of 4 years and $71 million (the Hawks won’t match that). So, essentially the Knicks traded Hardaway for Jerian Grant, and then traded Grant for Derrick Rose, and then let Rose leave in free agency only to sign Hardaway.
Please keep doing you Knicks…
Sincerely, Philly fans everywhere